Permutations
Clare Lagomarsino
In Permutations, I explore the ways in which gender, race, and class have informed my own relationship with food and cooking, the role food plays in creating culture and community for marginalized people, and the way the culinary industry often sells these communities short. My broader understanding of food is that it is something inseparable from the people who make it; be it their social position, family history, or their ethics. It’s this connectedness that draws me to a farm-cooked meal, which invokes a complex web of people, plants, animals, and weather conditions, over a restaurant-cooked meal, whose preparation is entirely veiled from the one who consumes it. Through this book, I choose to explore food culture through altered reading experiences. Taking articles from both traditional media and food media and transforming their design and presentation allows for the information to be consumed in a more thought-provoking way. Permutations alters the reading experience in a way that encourages the reader to create an internal dialogue. This book provides a completely personalized reading experience for each person, based on a system of self-evaluation and encoded chapters. Following the code meant specifically for them, readers are led to a chapter of articles intended for their level of food culture understanding and receive a uniquely tailored reading experience. This book uses food culture as the vehicle for discussion, both external and internal.